


The Concequences of Being Dumbledore

by Immortal Sailor Cosmos (Immortal_Cosmic_Saturn), Immortal_Cosmic_Saturn



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-03-11 19:46:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13531266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Immortal_Cosmic_Saturn/pseuds/Immortal%20Sailor%20Cosmos, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Immortal_Cosmic_Saturn/pseuds/Immortal_Cosmic_Saturn
Summary: Unconnected one-shot drabbles of the mistakes Albus Dumbledore made, and how they could have gone wrong.Tumblr Tag #CoBD





	1. Baby on a Doorstep 1: Baby Harry and Hypothermia

A chill wind blew through the street of Privet Drive. The three people who had been there had been gone only a few minutes. Headmaster Dumbledore had not been to Privet Drive before his arrival that night, and Professor McGonagall had been observing the family all day. No spells were cast by either Professor, and Hagrid could not reliably use the broken pieces of his wand.  
It was just after 11pm on an average November night in Surrey. For a fully dressed adult, the 45 Fahrenheit degree weather and 8 mph wind would not cause much harm, so long as they were awake and moving. But children lose heat faster than adults, the younger the child, the faster the cold can set in. For sleeping Harry Potter, 15 month old toddler in only a blanket and a bodysuit, hypothermia began to develop by midnight.  
By 4am, Harry Potter lay dead on the doorstep he had been placed on only hours before. When Petunia Dursley opened the door to put the empty milk cartons out for the milkman to replace, she screamed at the sight that greeted her. She read the letter, which she promptly burned in the fireplace, going to wake Vernon. By this point Mrs. Number 3 had come out to see what the commotion was about and also discovered the dead baby on her neighbor’s door. She rushed inside and called the police.  
Petunia told the police that she had a nephew about the age of the child, but had never met him, could only give his name, not a birth date or address, having not spoken to her sister since before either of their weddings. With no proof the letter existed, and not being willing to admit to the magic it spoke of, the identity of the dead baby was marked as a cold case and filed away, forgotten, with only a note that the Potters were persons of interest in the case.  
It would be five more years before forensics would be used in criminal cases, and more than ten before anyone thought to compare the DNA of the baby to the woman of whose doorstep he had been left on.  
Headmaster Dumbledore was frantic when he realized that Harry Potter’s Hogwarts Letter was not written in 1991. The personal and political fall out of his actions having killed the Boy Who Lived were astronomical. He lost all of his titles and positions, and an edit to his Chocolate Frog Card was made, removing the praise and listing him as the murderer of the Boy Who Lived.


	2. Baby on a Doorstep: Toddler Harry wonders away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baby on a Soorstep #2. Because at 15 Months old, Harry was almost guaranteed to be walking.

It was nearly one o’clock am on Privet Drive. The street was quite, with all of it’s residence asleep. However the newest was beginning to stir, having been asleep since 10 o’clock pm, and having a scary dream, memory, of mommy screaming and the green light. The toddler on the doorstep of Number 4 Privet Drive woke with a startled cry, calling out for “mama” after the bad dream. He looked around himself, sight blurry, tears falling down his cheeks. He didn’t see mama or papa anyway. And pa’foo’ and moo’ weren’t there either. He began to cry more now, and began squirming where he lay, trying to get mama or papa’s attention to come get him. In the struggle, the letter tucked in the blankets with him came loose, and fell to the step. When he was finally free he sat up, arms raised to the air and grasping hands at the air, still crying for mama and papa. But they still did not come. He began to crawl, and when he reached the edge of the step used it to help him stand, still crying.  
Once his feet were under him he began to walk on unsteady feet, wobbling as he went in search of mama and papa. His cries getting louder and more high pitched the longer it took. It was an hour, and half a block when someone finally came out to see what the commotion was. Finding an unknown toddler at nearly 2 o’clock in the morning was not anyway to start a day, and the couple called the police station. Privet Drive was child lightly windy, as the London area tended to be on November nights, and the child was rushed to the nearest hospital, to prevent hypothermia from setting it.  
Further down the street, at Number 4, Mrs. Dursley slept on. In the morning, she would hear about how a toddler had been found the night before, and Mrs. Number 6 would mention the baby blanket she had found in the hedges between her and Mrs. Number 8’s house. The letter, being lighter and sleeker, had been blown more than three blocks away, and would be discarded as litter by the person that would find it torn and dirty in some bushes a few days later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those that say "But the Movie has Lily picking him up not letting him walk on his own, so he obviously can't"  
> 1) I have a degree in this field, I know what I'm talking about   
> 2) I know 13 Month olds that just learned to walk, just because they can doesn't mean the will, the may still prefer to crawl  
> 3) at 15 months old he may be able to walk, but might not have the motor control to run well yet  
> 4) You've obviously never been in an emergency situation with a child, especially one small enough to carry. When you have equal or more adults to children, you grab that kid and run, because they don't run very fast on their own, and even weighted down you can move faster and don't have to worry about them taking a wrong turn. Even if you have less adults, the adults tend to pick up the smallest/slowest (usually the same) when they go so that no one gets slowed down or left behind. Emergencies that have been drilled for (likely at school/daycares)are probably the only exceptions.


End file.
